I just read a blog post titled, “iPad in the Enterprise: A Dirty Little Secret,” by Tom Kaneshige, who blogs about all things Apple for CIO.com. His secret: People don’t use computers very much at work.

But his basic contention is that iPads can do nearly all the things folks need to do at work just as well as a desktop or laptop computer, but more simply.

Kaneshige argues otherwise:

“Critics also shake their head at the iPad’s virtual keyboard. They can’t imagine anyone writing emails without a physical QWERTY keyboard. The iPad is not a good content-creation device, they say.

This is how I view the iPad: as a new tool that enables companies to do things in new ways.Does your company use the iPad? What are your thoughts on the ease of using the iPad for work?

That's true. McDonald's workers, factory workers... they don't use computers much. And they make up the backbone of the economy as far as working numbers.

But do they need iPads for those positions?

I'm pretty sure the reference is to those people who actually sit in front of a computer all day. I also think the statement is that those people waste time on their computers instead of doing their work. The solution is simple...get better employees that follow company guidelines better. Giving someone an iPad will lead to only one thing in the workplace....Angry Birds.

Almost everyone in retail uses a computer, but it's only to finalize purchases. I don't think it will happen overnight, but retailers that focus on service will be using these types of apps for transactions soon.

That's true. McDonald's workers, factory workers... they don't use computers much. And they make up the backbone of the economy as far as working numbers.

But do they need iPads for those positions?

I'm pretty sure the reference is to those people who actually sit in front of a computer all day. I also think the statement is that those people waste time on their computers instead of doing their work. The solution is simple...get better employees that follow company guidelines better. Giving someone an iPad will lead to only one thing in the workplace....Angry Birds.

If I'm spending my day on a computer looking at Facebook rather than working, putting me on an iPad is going to do two things:

make me work more slowly so that I have less time in which I do my real work since I'm struggling more and more to do my facebook time, and instead of it being a browser tab it will now consume my display when in use AND give me extremely "in my face" alerts rather than being a background thing.

make facebook relationally easy to do than my real job, basically informing me that the company treasures my FaceBook agenda over my productive work.

If an app is created, using mostly a one-touch GUI for everything(POS systems are a good example), I can see them being used in the corporate world. However, I think Apple would need to make a dumbed down version for two reasons:

1. If you're using a POS system, you will never, ever, sync it up to iTunes. You'll never download music and you'll never play any games on it. It is simply being used for one application.

2. Price. No one is going to spend the same amount of money on an iPad as they do a desktop or laptop system. We actually spend less money on our machines here than what the iPad is selling for(without a contract).

OP: But, really, shouldn't we be using the term "tablets" instead of iPads? Was this done on purpose? Or is that what you meant? iPad is just one of the many, many tablets out there.

2. Price. No one is going to spend the same amount of money on an iPad as they do a desktop or laptop system. We actually spend less money on our machines here than what the iPad is selling for(without a contract).

This is the key point I think. Give me a price issue like this (i.e. beat a current desktop's price in a situation where an iPad could be used) and guess what, you've just asked for a Linux desktop. Cheaper than either solution, way more manageable than IOS and able to be made as easy or as "power user" as necessary.

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I see the iPad having a great impact in the field, transportation and logistics, as well as large warehouse environments.

I absolutely agree that Tablets are very limiting with their virtual keyboards. I have been working with a company called Verbble that has produced the first speech recognition app for the enterprise. As was mentioned here earlier with content creation...Verbble helps alleviate the biggest problem of mobile devices...data input. With Verbble's Talk, Type or Click functionality, mobile users are able to increase mobile productivity by up to 5x. Verbble speech enables any form, PDF, CRM, contract, etc; preserves all of the native inputs while optimizing it so that you can then Talk, Type, or Click/Touch your way through the form on your mobile device. Verbble then allows users to send that information to virtually any endpoint, including your CMS, CRM, email, PDF, etc. Verbble is a cloud-based offering available on all iOS, Android, Windows and Blackberry devices. Here is a great demo of Verbble's integration with Salesforce on the iPad - http://www.verbble.com/tour/#ipad